Is the housing market now a buyer's market? Not according to Victoria Hartley, who writes on the site today about her struggle to find a new home. Since finding a buyer for her flat in February, she has seen four potential purchases stall and has decided to shelve her buying plans for the short-term.
It seems crazy that she has struggled so much. Yesterday banks told us they had approved only 21,000 mortgages for house purchases last month, but property website Rightmove alone boasts of having 24,000 new-build homes on its books.
Add all the other properties for sale, on that site and beyond, and it seems certain that supply outstrips demand by a fair distance. Earlier this week Rightmove said sellers were being forced to cut asking prices as the buyer pool dwindled.
So were Victoria and her partner just unlucky? The sellers they were involved with seemed to have other options, suggesting that in some areas there are still more than enough buyers to go round. Is this just a case of the London market behaving differently to the rest of the country - or have you experienced similar problems as a buyer elsewhere?
